The secret life of the Express-News

You don’t know what’s going to be in tomorrow’s newspaper, and right now, neither does anyone at the Express-News.

It’s 8:45 a.m. on the city desk, the name given to the large room on the 2nd floor of the building, where the metro editors, their assistants and their reporters sit. A handful of editors have been scouring through their computers and working the phones in preparation for an informal 9:30 meeting of the minds, to decide the line-up for tomorrow’s paper.

“Right now, we’re trying to see if we have any news today,” Monica Markel, deputy metro editor, cracks.

No news is bad news

If you think this is a diabolical lab of agendas and issues, where Marxist guerillas conspire to bend the truth and twist the facts to print stuff you don’t like, you’re wrong. The news dictates what they do. Staffing and the size of the city creates a situation where the EN can’t cover everything. And getting information for the stories they chose to work on ain’t easy. Pulling information out of police, politicians, and midlevel bureaucrats in a timely fashion is as hard as finding elbow room at NIOSA.

By 5 p.m., this place will be controlled chaos. But now, it’s quiet.

The three televisions that sit on each end of the main editing area are on mute. The large, open work area houses dozens of cluttered desktops and work areas. The rows of phones are quiet. The fax machine is resting, prepping itself for another day of spitting out press releases.

Things begin to happen. A few more editors show up. Reporters call in to share tips or notify editors of their plans for the day.

Good Morning, SA!

The police reporter comes in. She has already been to the site of a murder last night, but couldn’t get any salient information at the scene, so she’s going to let it simmer and start again later in the morning. She’s also trying to gather information on a pair of non-fatal shootings, and wants to check the police department’s statistics on shootings for the year so far.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s office sends an email that says San Antonio’s Brooks City Base is a finalist for a Homeland Security bio-defense facility.

Markel tells this to the MySanAntonio.com editor who is stationed in the city room and that it needs to go online immediately. “I”ll write it and get it to you.”

Within minutes, there’s a flurry of clicking keys and, a few minutes later, the story based on the information in the press release is online.

The only problem, however, is that it’s wrong.

The news begins here

When the editors gather for the 9:30 meeting, Markel has the story as the lead item on the Metro Desk budget for Thursday’s paper. It’s also the lead item on the national editor’s proposed story list. But his reporter, based in Washington, has reported the proposed facility would be located at Texas Research Park.

This would be the perfect place for a turf war, but instead, Markel and Gary Newsom, the national editor, try to find out what’s going on. Newsom calls Washington, and Markel alerts MySA, which corrects the story within seconds. Eventually, Newsom and Markel decide their reporters will collaborate on a single story.

The budget is lean today. The dog show is high on the list. “People love dogs,” says a photo editor, who is considering staff-produced still photos for the paper, as well as a slide show and video story for MySA. There’s a pretty intense trial going on, about the torture and probable murder of a five-year-old boy, and Markel suspects that will be readable.

Lady Bird Johnson is ill, and while everyone wishes her the best, they’re prepared in case things take a turn for the worst. Obituary information is ready, and multimedia presentations are in place, and Austin-based reporters are on call to gather reaction from state officials.

Beyond that, the state editor said her staff has squat. She literally said that.

Plans are put in place, ideas are kicked around, but nothing is determined. The meeting adjourns at 9:45. There’s another, more formal meeting, involving all of the paper’s departments, at 11.

You can comment below, or subscribe for e-mail notifications (bottom of the left column), or get the RSS feed (top of the right column)